🧱 When Tradition Becomes a Trap

Membership organisations are steeped in history. They carry the legacy of founders, past presidents, early pioneers, and sector-shaping moments. Their identity is often built on heritage, of being long-standing, respected, and rooted in a profession or cause.

There is however a fine line between tradition as a strength and tradition as a straitjacket.

Many membership bodies are finding that what once made them distinctive is now holding them back; and in an ever-changing world, tradition can quietly become a trap, obscuring declining relevance, masking outdated practices, and discouraging meaningful change.

Here’s why that matters, and what can be done about it. 

1. "We’ve Always Done It This Way"

The most dangerous sentence in any membership organisation.

It's easy to keep doing what’s familiar: the same events, governance processes, awards, communications formats, committee structures. These habits build comfort and predictability, but they can also become blind spots.

Sometimes, long-standing activities continue even when attendance is low, value is unclear, or they’ve become inaccessible to newer or more diverse members. The organisational energy spent maintaining these legacy features can come at the cost of innovation and member engagement.

🧭 Tradition should be a compass, not a cage.

2. Structures That Serve the Past, Not the Future

Many membership organisations are still structured around models that suited the 1980s or early 2000s, i.e., physical branches, quarterly publications, annual AGMs as the centrepiece of governance.

But member expectations have changed. People want digital-first access, personalised communications, on-demand CPD, and flexible, modern volunteering opportunities. They want responsiveness and relevance, not routines.

Clinging to outdated formats can make a membership body seem increasingly out of touch, especially to younger professionals or new entrants to the sector.

🔧 The fact something worked well for 30 years doesn’t mean it deserves another 10.

3. Leadership Drawn from the Same Pool

In many organisations, board or committee roles are filled by the same familiar names, individuals with years of experience in the profession, but often little diversity in background, perspective, or lived experience.

This can inadvertently create echo chambers where strategy is shaped by how things have always been done, and new thinking is treated with caution. It can also make the organisation feel exclusive or cliquish to outsiders.

🌱 If the people deciding the future all look and think like the past, don’t be surprised if nothing changes.

4. Reverence for History Can Crowd Out Urgency

Anniversary years. Celebrations of founding figures. Pride in past influence. All of these have value, but too often they crowd out the uncomfortable questions:

• Are we meeting our members’ current needs?

• Are we still the best way for members to connect, learn, or be represented?

• Are we offering value that can’t be found elsewhere, i.e., more flexibly, digitally, or cheaply?

Some organisations invest more time honouring the past than preparing for the future. The result? A steady slide into irrelevance, masked by ceremonial activity.

📉 Heritage is only useful if it earns you credibility to lead into what’s next.

5. The Weight of Ritual Can Stifle Experimentation

Membership bodies are often cautious by nature. They prize stability, and with good reason. Members should and do rely on them to be consistent, professional, and trustworthy.

But when every decision has to pass through five committees and match last year’s format, experimentation becomes nearly impossible. New ideas are piloted reluctantly, if at all. Innovation is relegated to task groups with no budget or mandate. Fear of upsetting long-standing members becomes a reason to do nothing.

💡 If your innovation strategy depends on not upsetting anyone, it’s not a strategy, it’s a holding pattern.

So What Can Be Done?

Breaking free from the trappings of tradition doesn’t mean abandoning your roots. It means using them as a springboard, not a safety net.

Here’s where to start:

• Interrogate legacy practices. Create space to ask: is this still delivering value? Who is this serving? What would happen if we stopped?

• Refresh leadership pipelines. Look beyond the usual suspects. Bring in perspectives from younger members, underrepresented groups, and external stakeholders.

• Prototype, don’t perfect. Pilot new services or formats without waiting for them to be flawless. Learn fast and adapt.

• Celebrate purpose, not just history. Honour your founding values by applying them to today’s challenges, not by repeating yesterday’s solutions.

Tradition is powerful. It can give an organisation identity, legitimacy, and emotional connection; but when tradition becomes a reason not to change, it’s no longer a strength, it is a risk.

The most successful membership bodies are those that know how to honour the past without becoming beholden to it. They evolve their formats, refresh their leadership, and let go of activities that no longer serve.

Not because they don’t care about history, but because they care about their members’ future.